GMC Jam Discussion The Post-Apocalyptic GMC Jam #1 Discussion Thread

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JackOatley

Guest
@Kepons Yeah I guess the control is just preference. It's like, I was using the "right" finger, but on the wrong hand a lot. >.<
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
All games were played, and all my comments are up! Check the votes and comments HERE!

Lots of fun entries round here, I think you really outdid yourselves this time!

(maybe it has something to do with not needing to focus on theme and handicap at once...?)
 
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Misu

Guest
10 new reviews are up now!
And I also included an additional link for one of the people who participated in this jam. Please do check that out. BUT before you do, please read my two early quotes by me:
Misu said:
... I vote for the best base on my usual formats specs. If you look for a tantrum, I will send you a photo of a clown as my response... because only clowns can be as ridiculous enough to look for argument for something that has no meaning in life. YES, Life is meaningless, we are all going to die anyway ...
Misu said:
I must warn all of you. My reviews can be harsh because I use mostly criticism but let me explain the purpose. As an art major for almost 7 years now, I've learnt, by the hard way, that criticism was establish NOT to build up confidence nor to compliment. The main reason criticism exist is to evaluate, by both objective and subjective side, the creation at either a rough or critical basis. By going for the rough road, it helps the user auto-evaluate themselves and take the mistake they did and fix it up, which then becoming better (talented and/or acknowledge) than before. Its a teaching mechanism. So basically I'm teaching you by mentioning your mistakes roughly directive. I just hope some of you understood it and can handle my reviews without having to look for a counter-statement towards it or even go on a corner and cry about it.
 

Nallebeorn

Member
Okay, I've uploaded the "reviews" I've made so far (35, I think). Click this clickable click-link to click read them. I don't know why, because they're all pretty short and simple, but it takes an awful lot of time for me to comment on the games. So now I'll just play through the remaining games and rank them all to be sure I have time for that, and then – maybe – I'll comment on some more (of course, I'll definitely write comments for the top 3, if those change)
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Aaaaalright, I've got a dilemma.

The thing is, my and @Mercerenies' entry (Troubles of Post-Mortal Times) has received some share of feedback, and there are a few patterns emerging. Generally, a common criticism involves inconsistency and disconnection between the included games, right to the different artistic styles and such. Also, there seems to be an issue with weaker puzzles (apparently Hellfire/Waterfalls) "dragging down" the cooler ones (apparently Gardening, maybe Crowd Control). There is some praise, too, but typically it's directed towards the gardening puzzle. It's not a bad thing that people enjoy the gardening puzzle, but the general tendency I notice is that people don't like / are neutral towards the "core" concept (four puzzle types joined together) while they like / are neutral towards specific ideas (mostly the gardening puzzle).

At the same time, the inconsistency might or might not be a side-effect of having too little Jam time. Originally, I planned for the main story to connect the jobs as having the same trouble in the root. More specifically (hidden in spoiler for those who haven't played the game yet, as well as to spare the browser some wall of text):
The title itself, "Troubles of Post-Mortal Times", is related to the fact that due to PARADIGM SHIFT all hell breaks loose and new problems appear. In particular, the need for sophisticated floral patterns is because angels want to express divine glory through them, and come with more and more absurd requirements. The hellfire control is in shambles because most thermal demons were reassigned to find a variety of lawyering tricks or voting systems to make the Devil come out at the top (it makes sense if you make a few leaps, such as treating thermal entropy and information entropy as similar). The crowd control is the result of followers of God and Devil getting particularly active during the PARADIGM SHIFT day, and causing destruction when fighting with each other. The waterfall designing is a preparation for rebuilding the new world (mind that's the least fleshed out idea of all).

Now then, I decided to go for different artistic style for each game, because each of the jobs, while connected through the cause, is different in its nature, and in a way represents a different character, too. So we've got generally calm and elegant gardening, where flowers are assembled together, a graph paper where waterfall designs to be realised (...or not) are drawn (kind of like blueprints, except not on an actual blueprint paper), a crowd simulation application displayed on a monitor... and hellfire, which, I guess, I didn't really have much idea for? The thing is, maybe I could try to make it consistent somehow, but I can't quite figure out a way to do it, without sacrificing some job's uniqueness over others. And at the same time, if people really find such a stylistic inconsistency to be inherently bad, not redeemed even if the story properly connects all that variety of jobs, that would be a big trouble for the core gameplay format...

(oh, and for the record, the characters as presented in the Jam game's dialogue don't quite represent the characters as I've planned them; I and Mercerenies for some reason didn't quite have time for discussing details of the story; for example, Rose's subplot would involve artistic troubles, with having to sell her work for angels, without proper crediting, and being left with no time for own projects)

Generally, my dilemma is, whether to continue ToPMT in its current 4-in-1 format, with the story hopefully integrating specific games much better, or whether to scrap that project and salvage some better ideas from that (gardening).
Generally, there's quite a big plot that's pretty much designed for the current format, and it cannot really be re-purposed for different mechanics altogether. At the same time, from the feedback around it kinda sounds like the plot gluing different games and themes together wouldn't be enough, and the inconsistency would be still to glaring? Would better explained inconsistency still be as bad...?

So, um, yes. Thoughts? ^^'
 

trg601

Member
I thought that (while I did enjoy certain minigames more than others,) that making these minigames was a great idea, because it allowed you both to work together well, which can be hard sometimes. I thought the variety in the games was fantastic, but perhaps they would have blended together a little better if you came up with a common format for all the games beforehand.
 
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RekNepZ

GMC Historian
RekNepZ is currently on vacation away from all internet and devices, which I'd assume is why he hasn't released a patch. Personally, I suspect he had the same problem that I had with Breif Case, which is that the game depended on local files stored in the appdata directory, meaning that if you test it on the computer that the game was made on, it will always work because that appdata file remains, but on any other computer it won't. It's a tricky error because, as I learned the hard way, without testing it on a second computer, there's really no way to detect it before the jam is over.
^^Correct. Dumb weird sandboxing, appdata, and me for forgetting to include a certain important file (it was 5am and I was in a rush). New download here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2JcZt2NziGwVmxDSXdpcjR0LXM/view?usp=sharing
 
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JackOatley

Guest
Second review video:

Featured game ratings:
Rest In Peace (Blake): 35/40
Final Shelter (The M): 26/40
The Swarm (Fel666): 28/40
The Winchester (clemonades): 25/40
Game Engine Test (Misty): 8/40
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Hmm, I guess I'll try to follow through the 4 in 1 idea in the end, especially since I got some idea how to keep the unique styles of different games while not making switching between them so abrupt... guess we'll see how that works out.

More importantly...

If you want to update your README or AFTERWORD file, now is the last chance!
I'll be sending the last ZIP patch/update in about 24 hours, after that, no more updates are expected.


That patch, aside from a bunch of README files (mostly with missing credits), will include a post-Jam emergency fix of Soulgrab by @RekNepZ, which you can get here. Generally, the error was caused by the Included Files not being included properly, as far as I know (something similar probably happened to Snail Man with Brief Case in Jam #16).

(oh, by the way, do you have any small suggestions regarding GMC Jam Player? I'll be putting an updated version of that, too)
 
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Misu

Guest
Everytime I select next entry button, the jam player glitches so the highlighted game is the previous game.
 

Electros

Member
I've been offline for a little bit, but I just wanted to drop a quick comment to all the reviewers to say - you are awesome, thanks for the feedback!
 

The M

Member
@JackOatley The sound effect on the turrets is limited. Now. It was the first thing I did after the jam was over, for obvious reasons. Maybe a pause menu should have been the second thing. :p

@Alice The zombie outbreak had something to do with Pokemon. I think it was because everyone was playing the game, other games didn't sell as well. This led to less funding and cut corners. Eventually a game came out with a malicious evil inside that wasn't found because the developers couldn't afford beta-testing. The evil within the game spread, took control, and then the usual zombie apocalypse stuff happened.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
@Misu: I cannot reproduce the issue, sorry.

@The M: Ah, that makes so much more sense now! Too bad you apparently didn't have time to explain that properly in the game and stuff. *whistling*
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
The second patch is out!

It mostly includes some credits, changes in game information (e.g. the title of, as it turns out, Come + See The World etc.) and a post-Jam emergency fix of @RekNepZ entry. I recommend checking the post-Jam fixed version.

Also, it includes a fix for double enters in exported files (at least I think so) and a dialog when you try to close the player without saving.

The ZIP patch is available HERE
The updated ZIP is available HERE
 

trg601

Member
Does the patch overwrite my existing jam data?

Edit: Nevermind, though I backed it up anyway. That was a pretty painless patch process, I must say.
 
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Micah_DS

Member
Sweet, applied the patch without issues. Super straightforward.
I realized that I'm still needing to play 61 games though, because I keep messing around in GMS in my free time instead of playing games. So many things to program. So many functions to mess around with. It's a bit odd that I'm having a hard time getting myself to play games because I'm having too much fun programming though....

(OH! 42nd post! Just sayin... wow, I am such a nerd)
 

HayManMarc

Member
Welp--- I've done about 25 reviews so far. If you can call them reviews. I'll post them all at once, either when they're finished or voting time ends, whichever comes first. Just thought I'd let you all know.
Also, my reviews come across very critical. I'm sorry, please don't assume I'm being mean, I'm just pointing out what I find as flaws. And on top of that, I'm not an experienced and avid gamer, so my take on things will be quite different from the norm, I'd imagine.
Another thing, I'm not exactly objective with certain genres. Some things I just don't like and it's hard for me to be unbiased in many of these instances.
Anyway, happy jam voting and thanks for playing my not-quite-a-game game to those that have played and commented on it. :)
 
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Nacky Slocker

Guest
Alright! I finally got around to making a new account for the new forum! I'm a little late for the GMC Jam, but My brother and I are gonna make a game for it anyway! We won't enter of course, but I still want to start participating in these these from now on!

Also, sorry if I'm off topic. I want to get a feel for how these work, and become a regular participant. See ya guys around!
 

HayManMarc

Member
Alright! I finally got around to making a new account for the new forum! I'm a little late for the GMC Jam, but My brother and I are gonna make a game for it anyway! We won't enter of course, but I still want to start participating in these these from now on!

Also, sorry if I'm off topic. I want to get a feel for how these work, and become a regular participant. See ya guys around!
Well, one way you can start is by playing, reviewing, and voting on this jam. ;)
 
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Nacky Slocker

Guest
Well, one way you can start is by playing, reviewing, and voting on this jam. ;)
I haven't participated in this jam, should I still be reviewing the current games? From the looks of it, the participants are the also the reviewers, is that correct?
 
S

Snail Man

Guest
You're perfectly allowed to review/vote even if you don't enter, it's just that not many people who haven't entered choose to do that. It's perfectly within the rules, and even encouraged.
 
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Nacky Slocker

Guest
Oh... Well, I'm gonna try to spend the next 3 days actually making a game. So I dunno what'll happen. I do have a few questions about voting though.
1. If you enter the jam, do you HAVE to play and vote?
2. You're not allowed to vote on your own entry, correct?
3. Does voting or not voting increase or decrease your chances of... anything? (Winning, losing, being kind to fellow contestants etc.)

EDIT: Yes, I know entries are closed, but I want to participate, even if ineligible, from GMC jam #1. I don't know why, but I'd find it really neat to say "I was here from the first GMC Jam!", even if my entry wasn't actually taking part in the competition.
 

HayManMarc

Member
Oh... Well, I'm gonna try to spend the next 3 days actually making a game. So I dunno what'll happen. I do have a few questions about voting though.
1. If you enter the jam, do you HAVE to play and vote?
2. You're not allowed to vote on your own entry, correct?
3. Does voting or not voting increase or decrease your chances of... anything? (Winning, losing, being kind to fellow contestants etc.)

EDIT: Yes, I know entries are closed, but I want to participate, even if ineligible, from GMC jam #1. I don't know why, but I'd find it really neat to say "I was here from the first GMC Jam!", even if my entry wasn't actually taking part in the competition.
1. You are not required to play and vote, but doing so makes you awesome.
2. No, you cannot vote for your own entry. That would make you not-awesome.
3. Not voting decreases your chances of being awesome.

Basically, the jam is a great way to learn more code and get immediate feedback on your work. We all like that feedback, so the more the merrier. It's the feedback that makes you the most awesome. :)
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
@Nacky Slocker: I think playing and voting on entries is perfect *and* eligible way of participating in the Jam, and after something like that you could safely say that "you were here from the first GMC Jam". As HayMan already explained, one of the cool things about GMC Jam is the immediate feedback we can get, and we're always looking for more. ^^

Speaking of playing and voting, there is only a week left till the voting ends! Get your votes in, people! Remember that you are not required to play every entry (especially if you use Jam player or, only if the player fails, Jam randomiser, not to favour some entries over others), and that partial feedback is better than its complete lack. At the same time, the more entries you play, the better, and as some users have already proven, it's perfectly possible to play all entries even in a week. ;)

(also, if need be, the voting period might be extended upon request, but there must be at least several people requesting it, and they must have shown reasonable progress with playing/reviewing the entries)
 
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Otyugra

Guest
Can someone tell me the controls for "Everybody is Dead" (by iTzCallumUK)? I figured out how to move the arrow up and down in the main menu but I can't figure out how to select any of the three options.

Thank you in advance.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
It's the first NewGMC GMC Jam, but since it's actually not called NewGMC because Yoyogames aren't Nintendo, it's called the GMC Jam because the GMC is called the GMC. The old GMC also was called the GMC and thus the jams on the GMC GMC was called GMC Jams.

I hope that cleared things up~♫
 

TehPilot

Member
Thanks for the fantastic reviews on my entry so far! I'm a proud father, and the game is my exceptional son.

I noticed a lot of reviewers are getting stuck on level 6, so I will see to uploading a video later tonight. I've tried explaining it over text to some reviewers, but I don't think my wording was great.

(That and I made a post-Jam version, but none of the fixes or changes are consequential enough to merit patching. I'd rather own my mistakes anyway.)
 
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Mocgames998

Guest
I ended up tweaking a bunch of things in my game.
If you noticed the quick sprite change to the falling sprite as you went down a slope, know that the sprite change is gone now.
I also increased the friction and jump height (Making the jump upgrade useless) and you no longer have ludicrously low friction when releasing left or right while going down a slope.
There's also less sprite "jittering" while trying to jump into a wall.
Ironically enough, my game shares a similar "realistic" loss of speed to Castlevania Symphony of the Night; losing speed when moving off a platform.
And yes, my game is based on metroidvanias.
(And there's now SOTN sprites in the game data just because, but I'll remove them if I re-release the game.)
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
I've noticed that there is no information for voters about how the voting mechanics actually work, so I decided to include the information in the Voting topic main post. It's mostly for informational purposes, describing the voting system used, as well as how best-ofs are tallied. You might want to pay attention to best-ofs, as I included a little tweak there.

How results are decided?
(the information here is not necessary for voting; it's mostly for people who want to understand how votes are calculated to produce the final results)

When it comes to the games ranking, the voting system used is normalised 1/(rank + 1), explained in more depth here:
Generally, in this system for each ranking the entry appears in, it gets a score of 1/(rank + 1), and for each ranking it doesn't appear in, it gets a score of 1/(last_rank + 2), as if it was ranked just after the last entry (normalisation).

Thanks to the normalisation step, if someone plays only a handful of games and ranks each of them, the other entries aren't harmed that much by not being played. In particular, this prevents a situation when a poor entry gets a significant boost because it has been ranked last among 10 played entries or so (it gets a measly score of 1/11 - 1/12 compared to others, instead of 1/11).

So, if someone ranks 3 entries, the effective score the top entries get compared to the unranked entries is:
1st place - 1/2 - 1/5
2nd place - 1/3 - 1/5
3rd place - 1/4 - 1/5

And if someone ranks 10 entries instead, the effective score becomes:
1st place - 1/2 - 1/12
2nd place - 1/3 - 1/12
3rd place - 1/4 - 1/12
...
10th place - 1/11 - 1/12

Therefore, the more entries you rank, the stronger support you give to your favourite entries!

After processing all rankings, the entries are sorted by their scores from specific votes, summed up.

When it comes to best-of awards, the winners must have gathered the most votes in their respective category. If multiple entries have the most votes, the Jam host may choose one or more entries among them to win the award. This is to avoid situations when e.g. 5 entries tie for 2 votes for the best devlog, and they all win; at the same time, it's still the community that decides which entries get the most votes.

The best reviewer is chosen arbitrarily by the Jam host, but the community opinion may be taken into account (just not in a "systematic" way).
Also, it's weekend time! Perfect for playing a solid bunch of games and maybe finish your voting, too? If you haven't started yet, you can still grab the ZIP and play ~10-20 entries (or more, if you get enough time); remember that incomplete feedback is better than no feedback at all. ^^
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
I'm curious: who's been in both first gmc jams?
Me. I made speedrunning game Sneak for the first Jam after thinking Time would win over Pancakes and then the theme was changed in the last minute. (This was before I even had an internet connection at home, so I had to go to the public library to check and didn't until I uploaded it on the final day)
 

Nallebeorn

Member
Me. I made speedrunning game Sneak for the first Jam after thinking Time would win over Pancakes and then the theme was changed in the last minute. (This was before I even had an internet connection at home, so I had to go to the public library to check and didn't until I uploaded it on the final day)
There was theme voting back then, too?
 
S

Snail Man

Guest
Yeah, because there was no winner to pick the theme :p

Chance also made something, right?
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
I guess once I start archiving the stuff properly (i.e. for the purposes of the Hall of Fame), I might wrap the Jams in a standard, parseable format, so that it'd be easier to process all that Jam data (entries, participants, etc.) from some program and keep things updated. That might be quite a lot of work to gather, but once done, it should be much easier to obtain whatever sorts of statistics you want.
 
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zircher

Guest
I'd be happy with a spread sheet, less effort (you have already done so much) and the user can sort/use the data as they desire.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Ah, no, no, no, spreadsheet is more of a representation than a format, with format being something like CSV; but CSV would still not do, especially if I wanted to include the voting data (because why not). The varying number of entries per Jam, the varying number of authors per entry, different best-of categories between Jams... Generally, there's quite a lot of fun and interesting data that might not quite fit neatly in a table. However, a hierarchic structure like JSON should be mostly sufficient.

I'll look into that sometime later, though, after the Jam, as there will be about two months of intermission between the Jams. I might not be too hasty, either, but if I set the example with the first Jam (or a bunch of Jams), others might pick up, too.
 
T

Tselmek

Guest
Here's 9 new reviews although I'm guessing I will only have time to play half of the entries at most. I'm immensely sorry in advance for anyone whose entry I could not play.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Ah, but @Nacky Slocker was pretty aware that this game won't make it to the Jam proper. He just decided to join symbolically. ;)

Either way, pretty fun to play around for a bit, I liked how all these scythes were forming more and more elaborate patterns. Dunno if making different difficulty levels was really necessary, considering that apparently you can't lose in this game, anyway, and the highest difficulty is the most fun due to how OP Death can get there. Also, too bad there were no sounds.

(now, would you be up to for some reviewing? You don't need to review everything if you don't have time, you don't need to have submitted entry to vote, and as HayManMarc pointed out a while ago, not voting decreases your chances of being awesome ^^)

@DukeSoft: are you planning to play other entries, too? The Jam gods are still craving some votes and feedback. ^^
 
Finally played through all the games, I was surprised by how many of the entries I actually enjoyed.
One issue I had was too many games wanting to bombard me with text at the start or constantly interrupting gameplay with text. Not to be intentionally rude but I don't have a reason to care about your story yet until I've tried the gameplay and see if it's something I want to keep playing.
 
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ghandpivot

Member
Not to be intentionally rude but I don't have a reason to care about your story yet until I've tried the gameplay and see if it's something I want to keep playing.
This! I'm streaming all the games I play live, so I feel guilty when skipping everything because the dev will clearly see it. Yet, as you say, if the game isn't fun nor interesting, then I feel like it's not worth the time to get into the story, as there are 80 other stories to get into as well.
 
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